


seven months, seven years

by potstickermaster



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potstickermaster/pseuds/potstickermaster
Summary: It has been seven months for her. It has been seven years for him, he said. So much longer for him that she understands why he has moved on.It still hurts.





	seven months, seven years

It hurts.

It shouldn't have. Not this much anyway. The last daughter of Krypton has braved the loss of a world, of her people, her family and friends—the billions of children who died with the rest of her race, their future, their hope.

So really, it shouldn't hurt this much. But as she watches Mon-El, supposed love of her life, kiss another woman, it _hurts._ It burns more than a thousand dying planets combined, she'd like to think. She blames her human heart, entirely too weak to hold such emotions like this, and it takes everything in her to not break in front of them when he introduces the stranger as his wife.

She's been here before, with James and Lucy. She had liked him and he was with her—beautiful and perfect—and she loves Mon-El and Imra is beautiful and perfect and he's _hers._ She puts on a brave face, smiles like she's happy for them, but inside she thinks she feels Krypton's dying moments all over again.

It hurts so much.

It must be because of how much closer this hits home. She had loved him—she loves him—beyond all his faults. Sending him off on that pod was the bravest thing she's ever done after accepting her mission when she was thirteen to take care of Kal in a foreign planet. She had sent him off with her mother's necklace and her heart, hoped the best for him, and for seven months she could not sleep without having nightmares of him dying a thousand deaths.

She had not slept for seven months. Which had been good for National City—crime does not rest and having Supergirl around more often had been good. She couldn't save him, so instead she'd save someone else. Mike of the Interns had died and Kara Danvers with him. There had only been Supergirl, for seven months: a reckless heroine full of guilt and regret and grief over another loss world, him. Seven months where she cursed her Kryptonian nature because it took so much to blow out her powers and for her to be physically exhausted enough to pass out, but she had been so, so tired for much longer.

It has been seven months for her. It has been seven years for him, he said. So much longer for him that she understands why he has moved on.

It still hurts.

When they return inside, Kara doesn't wait another moment. She flies off in her civilian clothes, her secret identity be damned, and she flies and flies until she breaks the sound barrier and becomes one with the atmosphere. She cries. She screams. For all the strength she is supposed to have on this planet she feels weak, helpless against the emotions that tore her apart. She wants to reach in and carve the feelings out, if only she could, but all she is able to do is scream into space and burn the atmosphere with her fire that from below she’s a storm herself.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been there but she feels close to a solar flare. She sets her thoughts to return to DEO and hesitates, instead plans to head to her apartment. On her way she hears a familiar heartbeat—one she has come to know, one that she can pick out from the entire planet itself like she knew Alex’s. Lena is at CatCo, alone on the balcony where Miss Grant used to stay at. Kara hovers above the building and sees her nursing a glass of what she assumes is whiskey.

Lena. The woman had just been in a series of rather unfortunate events the week prior—being framed, almost being shot, being kidnapped, almost dying from a plane. Kara’s heart aches for her, despite the altogether different type of grief that is clawing in her chest, and she finds herself in an alley so she could make it to the CatCo balcony using the normal human entrance.

No one is around on the floor. It had been late enough, and she wonders why Lena was still there.

“Lena?” She calls out. The surprise is evident with the CEO’s reaction: she jumps, just a little bit, and Kara hears her sniffle before she’s turning around as Kara steps into the balcony.

“Kara,” she breathes out. Her heartbeat races, out of nervousness, the blonde thinks, and she offers the woman a smile.

“Why are you still here?” Lena asks.

Kara shrugs. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Lena chuckles. It’s a soft sound, hollow at best, and Kara wonders how she is. She hadn’t been able to check up on her after she left for Alex, and she feels awful about it.

“Are you alright?” Lena asks. Kara looks at her in confusion. _She_ should be the one asking Lena that, not the other way around.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She answers, perhaps all too quickly. The raven-haired woman smiles wistfully and turns to look at the city that bustled in front of them.

“You tell me,” Lena murmurs. Kara hears her sigh and she rests her hands on the ledge, sighing as well. Lena continues. “I may not be the kindest person there is but I _am_ intuitive. I’d like to think so, anyway.” She sips her whiskey. Kara chuckles.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. It’s a lie, but it’s better than telling the truth. Lena makes a small sound of acknowledgement.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Lena says. Her voice is soft. Kara feels like a child being coaxed out of the darkness and she feels the tell-tale burn of tears again. Lena sighs once more. “I’ve had my fair share of heartache, Kara, believe it or not,” she whispers, and Kara stiffens at the implication of her words. She feels Lena look at her but she doesn’t speak. A tear rips down her cheek and she makes no move to wipe it away. “I may not know the depth of your grief but I am acquainted with it. I may not fully understand, but…” Lena sighs yet again and Kara wonders if she still carries with her the despair she talks about.

Maybe they had more in common than she thought.

“Know that I am here for you.” Lena hesitates then turns to Kara again. The blonde meets her gaze. “Always.”

Kara breaks again. There are arms around her after a moment, soothing words in her ear after another, and she cries. She feels the world crash around her as she crumples to the ground, her heart a dying planet inside her, and Lena is her only anchor as she grieves, yet again, for her loss.

Lena carries her through like a lighthouse in a stormy sea. Through her tears she wonders if Lena is anything but human with the strength she has, able to calm the raging misery inside of her. She is not aware of how long they have been there, her in Lena’s arms, but it’s the CEO who apologizes when Kara pulls away and Lena promises to be back in just second. Lena returns with a bottle of water and she makes phone calls and later, Kara is on a car with Lena to the blonde’s apartment. Lena promises to stay for the night, if only to make sure Kara is okay, and the heroine is ever glad her best friend only sees her as a weak, pathetic, grieving human, not anything else.

Lena promises to stay.

Another seven months pass. She doesn’t have nightmares about Mon-El anymore. Sleep has been a welcome reminder of her humanity. Lena Luthor is, too, and every day Kara veers away from the want to tell her she’s Supergirl in fear of her best friend seeing her as anything but human. The thought hurts, but Lena holds on her promise to stay and it hurts a little less.

She tells Lena anyway, about the truth, about everything, seven months and a half later. Lena promises to stay, still, and she grins at Kara so brightly because _a Luthor and a Super, who would have thought?_

Half of seven months later, Kara is a planet borne of a black hole of grief and Lena is her sun.

She finds out, one of seven months later, that _Lena_ means light. She tells Lena of this. Lena laughs, then smiles a smile that is as soft as the sunlight itself—much like in the mornings, when Kara wakes with it pining through the windows of her apartment, basking Lena in a glow that had the Kryptonian’s heart building itself back up. It was slow, this rebirth, but once she realized it she is unable to keep it inside her.

It bursts, seven months and two later, and she tells Lena. There’s fear in her heart then, too, but she had survived a loss of two worlds; what else is another?

Lena smiles at her. She echoes the words Kara had stuttered through with ease, like she had been longing to say them for a long, long time. Kara cries and Lena promises to stay.

Seven years later, Kara still feels the same for Lena. It still hurts, but only because Lena is so beautiful to look at sometimes—her radiant sun.

Seven years is such a short time to love someone like Lena. Seven more of these seven years won't be enough to contain the love she has. Kara would smile at her and tell her _thank you, I love you,_ and Lena would smile back, kiss her and echo her words. She promises to stay, through the years, and Kara thinks the seven and so months of hell she had been through when she was younger and foolish were so much worth all these years with the light of her life.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this wouldn't leave me after that episode. sorry if i haven't responded to comments or updated, i will this weekend!


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